Aminata Diallo, the daughter of a jeweller and a midwife, is kidnapped at the age of 11 from her village Bayo, Niger in West Africa and forced to walk for 3 months to the sea in a coffle with hundreds of strangers and a handful of people from her village. Even before she is placed on the ship, she vows that one day, she will return. A boy her age, Chekura, has been forced to assist the slave traders in transportation of Aminata and the others,The Book of Negroes Season 1 DVD but is later sent abroad just like the rest. He becomes Aminata's unlikely friend. After several horrific months of voyage across the Atlantic Ocean she arrives in South Carolina where she begins a new life as a slave. Her name is anglicized to Meena Dee. She is taken under the wing of a fellow slave named Georgia, who helps her learn English. Seeing her intelligence and potential, a fellow Muslim slave named Mamed secretly teaches her to read and write.